Harry Potter and the Staff of Ages
by Lyght
Summary: In Harry's sixth year, more challenges must be faced and overcome. Someone close to him is dead, and Voldemort is rapidly gaining strength: Can Harry defeat the lingering ghosts of the past long enough to save Hogwarts -- and himself?
1. Author's Note

**Harry Potter and the Staff of Ages**  
  
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Author's Note: Rare is the book that manages to affect me so much that I'm convinced to write a fanfic immediately after reading it. I thought _Goblet of Fire_ was that book, and I even started to write my own version of _Order of the Phoenix_ -- but in the end, I realized that I really wasn't as affected by it as I was by J.K. Rowling's latest.   
  
I'm not the best writer in the world, nor am I gifted with the imagination that led Rowling to make such a wonderful universe for me to play in. On that note, I think I ought to point out that by no means are any of the characters to be used in the following story are mine. Rather, they belong to that proverbial 'someone else' -- a someone who, as far as I am concerned, has done far more for this fandom than anybody else. After all, she created it, didn't she?   
  
So this attempt at continuing the epic fantasy which J.K. Rowling has created is dedicated to none other, as well as all the other people who have taken the time to read, edit, and rip the story to shreds. There are simply too many to name, but all of you have my utmost thanks.   
  
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	2. Memories

_Chapter One_  
Memories 

  
  
The last fingers of sunshine were clutching at the darkening horizon when the church steeple struck eight. A bell began to toll, its rich, sonorous tones ringing out as a paean to the encroaching night, and a startled bird fluttered from its roost in a flurry of wings. After all, it had just been given quite the shock -- but it would be difficult to tell whether that shock was caused by the bell's mournful ringing or by the six figures that had just burst from the depths of a low-lying cloud, streaking from the skies on what seemed to be bewitched broomsticks.  
  
As the crow winged away, above it sped the small formation in quite the opposite direction, their unpretentious black cloaks billowing in the wind, shrouding (predictably) black robes draped cleanly over the long wooden handles of their brooms. The only color on the otherwise somber uniforms was a burst of crimson emblazoned on the left side of the dark fabric, tracing its way through jagged paths to resemble a stylized feather, just as much identifier as decoration -- though for what obscure group or organization, only a few would know. And tonight, with luck, those few who _did_ know would be far, far away.  
  
The leader of the pack raised a fist and simultaneously, a voice called out from beneath the cowl of his hooded cloak: "Get ready to land," he barked, not taking any particular precautions to speak softly. Any curious onlookers not privy to his secret had already been drawn away to an unfortunate accident at the intersection of Anderson and Grimmauld; those who refused to be enticed by the promise of seeing totaled cars would be visited by other black-robed fellows who were exceptionally proficient at making sure any words overheard were promptly forgotten. But as Harry Potter wheeled his own broom at Remus Lupin's orders, he couldn't help but feel a sudden acute pang of worry. And said so.  
  
"Shouldn't you be talking a bit quieter?" he whispered, a bit out of breath after his whirlwind flight. "I mean, if Muggles hear you or see us, it'd be all over the news -- and -- that would be bad, wouldn't it?" Harry trailed off a bit sheepishly, but what had remained unspoken was obvious to all of them -- _What if_ Voldemort _watches the BBC?_  
  
To the wizarding world, that name was enough to make even the bravest tremble. Voldemort had been one of the most powerful evil wizards who had ever been born, rising to power on a tidal wave of suspicion, paranoia, and then finally outright panic. His supporters had rallied to the cause, and they were trained and culled to form an elite cadre marked with skull and serpent. These would be his most loyal followers, and all would eventually achieve infamy as deadly Dark Wizards bound irrevocably to their master -- Voldemort's Death Eaters, leaving behind them a wake of violence and senseless destruction. It had seemed merely a matter of time before the resources of even the Ministry of Magic were exhausted, and all would be overrun by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  
  
And then, by a stroke of sheer dumb luck, Voldemort had made a fatal mistake.   
  
Seventeen years ago, when he was at the height of his powers, he had blasted open a fateful door and murdered in cold blood two of his most zealous enemies. But somehow, when he tried to kill their child, his spell backfired -- leaving him a shadow of who he had been, and branding a distinctive scar on that baby's forehead. That night, Voldemort was destroyed; and that night, Harry Potter had been catapulted to wizarding glory as 'The Boy Who Lived.'  
  
For a while, it seemed that Voldemort had been completely destroyed, but his capacity for hatred and malevolence lived on. And Harry Potter, snared in a finely-woven web of lies during his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had seen for himself the Dark Lord's return -- a Dark Lord who was now thirsty for power and above all, retribution.  
  
But at the moment, it seemed, Lupin had more important matters than that on his mind. "Now remember the plan," he said, dismissing Harry's frantic warnings with a casual wave of a hand. "We don't have any of Dumbledore's gadgets on us tonight, so you'll all have to watch the houses carefully. If you see even _one_ person looking even remotely curious, let me know; Mad-Eye will make sure they have a hangover to remember. Land one at a time, by that clutch of trees over there, and quietly make your way to the house." He pointed with one knobby finger at a group of pines that would provide them with some desperately needed cover. "Except Harry, of course," Lupin added quickly. "You go down first; Kingsley, you have his back." Then: "What _are_ you doing, Nymphadora?"   
  
Nymphadora Tonks grimaced in the dusk, her red hair (red temporarily, that is) blazing so brightly that it forced Harry to look away. She had adopted a very awkward position on top of her broom, one leg stretched straight out in front of her while the other hung limply by her side. "Sorry -- it's this bloody beast of a Comet," she muttered apologetically, but all the same she threw an irritated look at both Lupin and her unruly mount. "And how many times have I told you not to call me that?"  
  
Lupin's words were a jolting reminder that despite the nonchalance which he tried to affect for everyone's sake, the danger Harry was facing was quite real -- and all pretenses towards bravado aside, Harry's worried desire for silence was only the most visible crack in his well-schooled façade. Despite himself, he shivered in his thick robes.  
  
It was his own fault he was up here watching this splendid June sunset, Harry reminded himself sternly; after all, he could have sent Lupin's owl straight back without bothering to reply. Besides, the Dursleys weren't about to let him out of the house now that they knew the 'dementings' of Azkaban were on the prowl. And in fact, it seemed as if the impossible had happened: Uncle Vernon's attitude towards magic had changed overnight once Aunt Petunia explained to him just exactly whom they were dealing with the day they came home from King's Cross Station.   
  
"Lord Voldemort?" Uncle Vernon had said, stroking his walrus-like face with the back of his hand. "And you say he's a -- a w-wizard, like _him_, and will come _here_?" A terrified glower at Harry had been followed immediately by panicked worry that left him a deep purple. "You can beat him, can't you -- well, Petunia, fight fire with fire, or that's how they say it..." And ever since that conversation, Harry's 'abnormality' had been reluctantly tolerated by the Dursleys, in the hope that he might save them from some horrible disaster. Harry had the sense not to point out that Voldemort was sure to come after him wherever he was, and judging from last year's confrontation in the Ministry of Magic, he wasn't even sure he would survive another encounter with the Dark Lord without Albus Dumbledore at his side.  
  
But despite the headmaster's warnings (and Uncle Vernon's desperate intimations that he would absolutely love his nephew to stay for the entire summer), Harry had felt an eager burst of anticipation as he read and reread his old professor's invitation. And when five members of the Order of the Phoenix had Apparated directly onto the Dursleys' flower bed right after the evening news, all doubts had been thrust aside by the burning desire to return, if only for a few days, to a world where he wasn't treated as a rotted dandelion too insignificant to be weeded.  
  
However, it wasn't until Arthur Weasley had threatened to level the entire living room that the Dursleys finally consented. Besides: "You're all going to be safe, since we're having this house watched every hour of the day," Mr. Weasley had confided. "Oh, and don't bother looking for the guards; Muggles like you could hardly see them, even with your _tellyscopes_ and all."   
  
And without further ado, Harry had eagerly snatched up his broom, put on the new robes which Tonks had almost ruined running them through the wash, and launched himself into the air with only a half-hearted goodbye to his only surviving relatives.   
  
But now, soaring somewhere above a dismal street with the wind tearing at his hair, he _still_ had no idea what Professor Lupin wanted with him. He hadn't been told, and when he had asked, Mr. Weasley coughed, muttered something about it being a secret, and looked away a bit too quickly for subtlety. _They're not telling you everything,_, a nasty little voice muttered in the back of his head. _You ought to have stayed right where you were; didn't Dumbledore say that Privet Drive was the key to your survival?_  
  
This time it was the booming bass of Kingsley Shackleton that answered his nagging doubts. "Relax," the wizard murmured, his voice rolling like calming waves across Harry's mind. "Moody's the one organizing security for this."   
  
"That he is," Arthur Weasley confirmed, nodding his head so quickly that his cloak nearly fell off. Like Tonks, his hair was a violent shade of red; unlike Tonks, however, for him that color was perfectly natural. "And we all know that if Mad-Eye had his way, we'd be waiting for him to secure the neighborhood while stationed in some remote country somewhere, oh -- " He jerked a finger in the general direction of Poland. "That way."   
  
Surprisingly, Lupin was the one who halted the bantering: "You'll have enough time to talk once we get inside, Arthur," he said bracingly. "But right now, let's get this over with, shall we?"   
  
Taking a deep breath, Harry pointed the nose of his Firebolt downwards. Then, the houses beneath him seemed to get larger and larger before, until -- with a sudden jerk -- his broom leveled off and halted just underneath a prickly needled branch. "Wow," he managed. "I forgot I knew how to do that -- " And he had no chance to say anything else before a heavy weight knocked all the wind from his lungs, followed by a distinctive bald pate and gleaming gold earring. Kingsley had arrived, quite literally, on top of him.  
  
"Get _down_," he hissed, grabbing Harry's broom while managing to keep some semblance of control over his own. "Do you want the entire bloody world to see you?" It was the first time Harry had ever heard him use even mild language, and the shock was enough to keep him quiet. _If even Kingsley's this worried..._  
  
Harry was prevented from replying indignantly by first Tonks, then Mr. Weasley, then an extremely nervous Deladus Diggle, and finally Lupin himself -- all of whom had plummeted from the heights quicker than the proverbial speeding bullet.   
  
"Catch anything?" Lupin whispered to the rest of them, dropping prone on the grassy lawn underneath the trees.   
  
"I thought I saw a man looking out of a window on my way down," Kingsley Shackleton rumbled -- Harry wondered fleetingly how someone with a voice resembling a small earthquake could still talk so quietly -- "Though it might have been my reflection," the wizard mused to himself. "I was going too quickly to tell."   
  
Lupin shrugged. "We'll tell Mad-Eye once we get in. Anyone else?" When there was no answer, he took firm hold of his broom and raised his head cautiously to survey his surroundings. "Looks clear to me. Harry, let's go!" And without any more encouragement, Harry grabbed his Firebolt, leaped up from beneath his startled guardian (who had been holding him down with a surprisingly powerful grip), and _ran_.  
  
Behind him, he could hear Kingsley's heavy boots thudding into the concrete sidewalk, the cadence as oddly soothing as the man himself -- before it was rudely interrupted by a high-pitched yelp that told him somebody had tripped over a crack in the cement -- "Keep on going!" Lupin ordered, prodding him with the bristles of his broomstick -- there, between eleven and thirteen -- he put on a burst of speed, and then --   
  
Silence.   
  
The six of them looked at each other, the awkwardness rising with each agonizing second of silence. Then: "We're here, aren't we? And we're alive, aren't we? So why do we all look like we're going to a funeral?" Diggle's valiant effort to inject some cheer into the gathering was cut down by five icy glares. "Er -- right," he mumbled apologetically. "I suppose we ought to head in, now, chaps. Right? In we go..."   
  
And as soon as the thought flashed through everyone's mind, the space between the two Muggle buildings began to widen until it finally solidified into something recognizable a scarred wooden door, followed by a set of familiar stony steps and then the rest of the dilapidated house, all of which emerged magically from what had been but air. Hesitantly, Harry pushed open the door -- to be immediately greeted first by Alastor Moody's sinister whirling eye and then by Moody himself.  
  
"Get in," the Auror bellowed. "Get in, before someone _sees_!" And, stricken, everybody rushed to be the first person to squeeze through the entrance to 12 Grimmauld Place, headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and home of the late Sirius Black.  
  
***  
  
Moody had changed quite a bit in the few weeks that had passed since the end of school. Someone had forced him into a new set of robes that prominently displayed the symbol of the Order in extremely red thread, and his unkempt hair (or what remained of it) had been immaculately brushed into something resembling order. It was clear that the Auror wasn't happy about the improvements in his appearance, though apparently he had agreed to them -- ever since Voldemort's return became public knowledge, the members of the Order had to appear in as good a light as possible, despite the sacrifices which some had to make. Harry distinctly saw him tear at the crimson insignia with a yellowed fingernail, a muscle twitching in his scarred cheek.  
  
The house had changed, too. The last time Harry had been there, its owner was still alive and had dashed about frantically trying to get it ready for Christmas -- back then, there was a kind of tangible excitement suffusing the atmosphere as his godfather flew from room to room getting rid of the harmful knickknacks lying around in cobwebbed corridors or cloistered in dim drawers, all the while directing the members of the Order to move the gigantic tree Mundungus Fletcher had procured ("A little bit to the right there, Remus!"), producing merry drifts of snow from the tip of his wand, and humming gravelly, tuneless carols. But now, the only remnant of those jolly days was the small pile of yet-unswept needles ensconced beneath Sirius' embroidered family tree.   
  
"Cleaning up," Moody explained with a ragged whisper, having noticed Harry's startled expression as they shut the door and hurried inside. Thick brown boxes lay piled up every few feet, crammed to the brim with everything from old silverware to bright bits of tinsel, partially covering the bare walls with their massive bulk. Even the stuffed elf-heads that had been nailed to plaques of honor were gone, all taken down and shoved unceremoniously into containers of their own. The Auror smiled grimly, patting the side of a box and gritting his teeth when an animated fork thrust its sharp tines through a bony finger.  
  
"Dumbledore wants all of this junk destroyed," he continued, pushing open another door to lead the group into the house's more than cluttered kitchen. It hardly seemed possible that there could be more scrolls than there had been six months ago, but there they were, and scattered in every place imaginable. One was even stuffed into what looked like a ceramic frog, which made faint noises of displeasure in its throbbing earthenware throat. But Moody didn't notice, or at least pretended not to -- and gave a blistering one-eyed glare at Diggle, who was muttering something about animal cruelty to a skeptical Mr. Weasley.  
  
Harry looked into one of the half-packed boxes sitting on the kitchen table, and his eyes fixed on a small black-and-white picture of Sirius' mother (who stared back at him with obvious dislike). Harry was sure that if photographs could talk, she would be cursing at him to no end -- but then he saw that somebody had violently torn off nearly half of the picture and then placed it back into its frame. Sickening realization hit him and quickly, he looked away.  
  
_"I used to be there," _ Sirius had told him as he explained why he had been burned off the embroidered Black family tree. _"My sweet old mother blasted me off after I ran away from home."_ Apparently, Sirius had also been erased from old family photos, but even his conspicuous absence here did nothing to lessen Harry's acute sense of loss.   
  
Moody obviously couldn't recognize what was going through Harry's mind, merely admonishing him to "Look, but don't touch -- hell, don't even look. Dangerous -- best that it's destroyed, you know, even though some've complained, you know -- about how much use 'studying these enchantments' could be, or some hogwash like that. As far as I'm concerned, it's about time. Bloody place's like a museum of everything the Dark Arts has to offer and it's all better gone than left for the wrong hands." And his magical eye managed to make three complete loops before fixing its gaze on Harry's scar, the bearer of which now felt slightly dizzy.   
  
Harry's attention soon drifted away from Moody, however, though every so often he would make sure to nod his head and mutter something that could be taken as polite agreement. Instead, he found himself wishing he could find some way out from under the Auror's nose as they made their way down the house's labyrinthine passages -- on the off chance that Sirius might drift through the empty walls of his old home to bid them all a last farewell...  
  
"Potter!" Moody growled, pulling Harry out of his reverie and back into painful reality. "Were you listening to a word I said?"  
  
"Constant vigilance," Harry answered dully as if repeating something learned by rote. "Stay careful and stay alive."   
  
The grizzled old wizard grunted in reply as he plunged along through the corridors of the house, his wooden leg tapping a jarring rhythm against the wooden floorboards. Harry had the sinking feeling that his lack of attention had been noticed, but fortunately for him, Moody's harangue was forestalled by the appearance of two gilded doors that shone dimly in the torchlight at the end of a long hallway. The same silver snake that adorned the entrance to the house had been attached here, as well; clearly, this room was one of some importance to whomever had built it. "Everybody inside," Moody ordered. "And keep it down..."  
  
As the Auror pushed open the doors with a knobbed hand, Harry felt his heart start thumping madly in his chest -- and then it stopped beating altogether as he saw what lay inside.  
  
What had once been a large, ornate bedroom had been completely stripped of anything that Moody had deemed 'dangerous' or 'extraneous,' which meant that virtually every piece of furniture had to be stuffed into cardboard boxes and tagged for removal and eventual destruction (even the bed was gone, after being chopped into three separate sections). Only nine or ten chairs remained, all with elaborately carved snakes for legs and painted a poisonous dark green with small gems for eyes. To Harry, it seemed that as soon as he sat down, the sinuous bodies would slither away -- and a chill raced down his spine as he saw the tiny emeralds flicker in the dim light of the candles hovering all throughout the room. Even Diggle lowered his voice to a reverent whisper as they moved inside.   
  
With a sinking feeling, Harry realized just exactly why he had been summoned from Privet Drive. A lump formed in his throat as he pulled up a chair in front of an empty coffin.  
  
"Let's keep this quick," Moody growled. "Right -- anybody have anything to say?" The Auror glared defiantly at the people in the room, daring them to say something.  
  
It was Lupin who first broke the mounting silence, reluctantly facing the small gathering before him. "Not too bad I have to start," he said quietly, eyes focused on the burning flame of a floating candle draped in velvet black wax. "I've known Sirius the longest, since we were in school together..." Remus laid a hand on the swirled ebony wood, then recoiling; and as he tried to say something, his voice caught in his throat and a faint glimmering could be seen in the corners of his eyes.   
  
Three years of Harry's life had been compressed into three seconds, flashing before his eyes, perpetually repeating -- Sirius, bedraggled and haggard on the cover of the Daily Prophet when he had escaped from Azkaban; Sirius, thrusting his wand at Professor Snape in twisted fury; Sirius, careening into the midnight sky atop Buckbeak the Hippogriff; Sirius, whispering advice in the Gryffindor Common Room's fire that would help defeat a vicious Hungarian Horntail, bidding him farewell as Snuffles at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, defiantly taunting Voldemort's Death Eaters; Sirius falling, dying, vanishing -- and Harry leaned back in his chair, more tired than he had ever been in his entire life.  
  
A hand tightened on the back of his shoulder. Harry glanced up to see Mr. Weasley standing behind him sympathetically, undoubtedly about to whisper something comforting into his ear, and suddenly he felt a fiery burst of anger threaten to overpower his senses. He didn't _want_ anybody to try and understand -- nobody _could_ understand, not even Professor Lupin -- Sirius had been the only person left in the wizarding world whom he could call friend, and father, and family… Abruptly, Harry shook off Mr. Weasley's grip and ran out of the room.   
  
He had no idea where he was going as he pounded down the long hallways of the house. Behind him, he could vaguely hear shouts of surprise from familiar voices, Moody's roaring for somebody to intercept him, Kingsley's counseling patience, Mr. Weasley's, panicked, wondering just what he had done. But he ignored them all -- _I should never have come_, Harry told himself, taking some small amount of comfort in the desperate mantra punctuated by the rhythmic thumping of his feet against the wooden floorboards. _I should never have come_.  
  
He had been to a funeral once, but that was when he was four, when Uncle Vernon's curmudgeonly old mother passed away. He'd dressed everybody in black, finding a properly mournful suit for little Dudley, who was anything but, and he'd even rented out a church for the occasion. Harry (of course) was ordered to keep quiet and still as the graying minister read aloud his benediction. At the time, he couldn't understand the somber mood -- he had never even met his great-aunt, so why should _he_ care while he went through the requisite actions? filing past the varnished casket with the rest of the weeping crowd, clutching at the hem of Aunt Petunia's trailing dress to avoid being lost in the rows of people, even dodging Dudley's pudgy fists -- another experience he didn't care to remember.  
  
Now he did, and fury mixed with lingering guilt as he thought about all the people who believed Sirius was a murderer, a criminal of the worst sort who deserved everything he had been forced to go through -- _I should never have come_, he repeated numbly, trying to convince himself that it was all a bad dream, that Sirius would come back -- and unexpectedly he found himself sprawled on the ground, his glasses shattered and his foot throbbing painfully from where he had stubbed it against a rather heavy box.   
  
But just as he was propping himself up on the sides of the box, a bloodcurdling scream pierced the relative silence of 12 Grimmauld Place, only partly muffled by deep red curtains that had flown open to reveal a face that Harry had vowed to hate --   
  
"_Fools!_" Sirius' mother screeched, loudly enough to wake the pictures taken off the wall (which, having decided to forgo sleep for now, began to echo her piercing screams). "_Get out of my house, you who defile the ancient house of Black with your foul deeds -- _"   
  
"_Me_?" Harry nearly choked.  
  
"Yes, _you_ -- " A canny look seemed to creep into her eyes as she sized up the person whom she was talking to. Then, conversationally: "YOU, Potter," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "And _what_ exactly are you doing, dressed in your funereal robes which, incidentally, are ... black? How very touching indeed."  
  
Harry trembled as he staggered unsteadily to his feet. _She's baiting you_, the rational part of his brain warned, but he didn't seem to notice -- "You ought to know," he said roughly, though biting off some of the viler words he had in mind as a concession to prudence. "Your son is dead."   
  
At that, the portrait began to chuckle. Quietly, at first, but then louder and louder until the entire hall reverberated with peals of shrieking laughter, each a dagger plunging into Harry's heart, waking memories he'd tried to bury -- "Shut up!" he yelled again and again, as if by sheer force of will he could force the curtains closed and quiet this hag forever --  
  
"Of _course_ I know, boy!" she said, gasping for air. "And now I suppose you're going to give me a good dressing-down for how badly I treated him, your _poor_, _angelic_, _long-suffering_ Sirius?" Tears of mirth dripped down her sallow skin as she leaned against her wooden frame. "Well! I'll have you know he's not the saint you think he is," she said, still chortling. "In fact -- "   
  
Harry thrust a hand in the pockets of his robes and withdrew his wand, its weight pressing comfortingly in his hand as he turned to confront his tormentor. "Say one more word and you're going to regret it," he muttered dangerously, and pointed his weapon squarely between her eyes. "One - more - word -- "   
  
"And what are you going to do to me, Potter? Kill me? Like your pathetic excuse for a godfather tried to do -- Oh yes," she said, noting Harry's stricken expression with a canny smirk. "I'd bet a pretty penny he never told _you_ that -- trying to _Avada Kevadra_ his helpless old mum -- fortunate for me that Bellatrix saw him, wasn't it, right in the nick of time, the dear -- "   
  
_Bellatrix_. The name hit Harry with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer -- "She murdered him," he snarled, his wand hand wavering -- "She _murdered_ him!"   
  
"Then good for her!" Sirius' mother positively beamed. "Now _that_ I didn't know -- how'd she do it, Potter? Perhaps with a well-aimed _Crucio_, making it too painful for him to avoid a Stunner, or maybe the Imperius Curse, ordering him to walk off a cliff, or the boring, tried-and-true killing curse -- quite the reversal of roles, wouldn't you say, Potter?"   
  
"_Go to hell_!" -- viciously grabbing at whatever his reeling mind could come up with. _She's only a picture -- she doesn't know anything -- I wish I had never come -- _   
  
"Hell? Sorry to disappoint you, but I'd suppose I'm already there, wouldn't you say, Potter? Wouldn't you say?" She afforded Harry a pitying, scornful look that didn't reach the malicious gleam in her eyes. "You wretched boy, laboring under the delusion that your beloved godfather was some magnificent specimen of humanity -- he was no better than I was, do you hear me? _A shame to the family, true, but he came from_ me _! We're one and the same, Sirius and I, the same!_"  
  
And then, she screamed. Harry's face had been transformed into a mask of unmistakable rage, and with a furious incantation he had loosed a jet of incandescent flame from the tip of his wand that sped up the sides of the faded scarlet curtains to tear vengefully at the curling canvas of the portrait with blazing tendrils. Still gibbering, Sirius' mother tried to flee to another picture, but Harry was prepared with yet another burst of fire that caught her trailing white hair -- and even in her death throes, she still kept up her incessant howling, amplified ten-fold by pain (if portraits could feel any) -- "_One and the same -- you hear me, Potter? One and the same -- _"   
  
Her final words faded as first the curtains, then the frame, and finally her picture dissolved in a burst of spent magic. A few feather-light ashes tumbled to the ground, settling on Harry's sneakers.  
  
With a deep breath, he shoved his wand back into his robes. He'd probably be sent another letter from the Ministry for this, but somehow he couldn't find it in himself to care; instead, his mind was still focused on what Sirius' mother had said.  
  
_She's a liar_, he told himself fiercely -- _She has no idea what she's talking about!_ -- but the damage had been done, and her words branded into his skull. "No," Harry muttered, sinking to the floor, but imagining Sirius raising his wand, twisted beyond recognition, bellowing the most deadly curse known to any witch or wizard... "No!"  
  
Then, footsteps; Mr. Weasley appeared, followed by a panting Professor Lupin and Alastor Moody, looking more dangerous than ever when illuminated by the corridor's faint lighting. "Harry?" Mr. Weasley asked tentatively. "Harry, what's the matter?"   
  
"It was her," Harry whispered blankly. An icy fist had gripped his limbs; he couldn't seem to think of anything except a burst of deadly green light, though from the wand of Sirius or a sinister Voldemort he couldn't seem to tell -- and then the barricades he had so painstakingly built against his agonizing memories came tumbling down -- slamming his head against the wall, unheeding the rippling pain shooting through his nerves, Harry's fragile composure broke at last. "She's a liar!" he screamed. "_Liar_!"   
  
Professor Lupin, however, was not satisfied. "Her? All we heard was you screaming, and -- well, here we are..." His gaze went from Harry to the now-empty wall to the neat pile of ashes and back again before locking onto Harry's scar.  
  
"You mean you didn't hear her?" Harry shook himself out of his stupor long enough to ask the obvious question. "That I -- I imagined it all...?"   
  
Moody's magical eye suddenly went haywire. For just a moment, genuine concern warred with the first traces of doubt; finally, fortunately, the former won over: "You'd better come with us, Potter," he said, heaving a deep breath. "There's been some _odd_ happenings here lately, and we wouldn't want you to be on the wrong end of one."  
  
"But -- " Harry knew that contesting Moody's decision would be futile, but he also knew he wasn't crazy. There was no way he could have simply dreamed up something like that, was there? _Ahhh -- but you're an unstable little one, aren't you?_ That nasty voice in the back of his head had come back, as if to confirm Harry's worst suspicions. _Don't try and hide it -- you can't hide from me, can you? Since you _ are _me..._  
  
And even in the face of his most fervent denials, Harry realized the voice was right. Wasn't he the one who had visions in his sleep? wasn't he the one with a scar that flared up at Voldemort's every whim? wasn't he the one who nearly killed Mr. Weasley and now wanted to do the same to Professor Dumbledore? who was able to see the thestrals? who heard mysterious voices tugging at the very strands of his existence from the veiled arch where Sirius -- Sirius -- His thoughts hit a welcome brick barrier, crumpled, and vanished. "I _heard_ her!" Harry resigned himself to protesting, though at the same time understanding it would be no use at all.   
  
Lupin, Moody, and Mr. Weasley all shared a skeptical look. "We believe you," Professor Lupin said at last. "But I think it's about time we got you home, Harry. Go find your broom and we'll meet you up front." And conferring among themselves in enigmatic whispers, they headed down the hallway to gather the rest of the Order.  
  
For a long time, Harry sat numbly beside the box where he had fallen, his head clasped in his hands. _It's not true_, he told himself fiercely. _She knows nothing about Sirius -- nothing!_  
  
"Harry?" Kingsley's distinctive rumble called from a distance. "Are you ready yet?"  
  
Reluctantly, Harry got to his feet, though not without one last look at what had once been the portrait of Sirius' mother. There were painful memories in this house, which he never wanted to face again -- _I should never have come..._


End file.
